Kootenai National Forest

The Kootenai wraps up the far northwest corner of Montana -- about 2.2 million acres of national forest, with a thin slice, some fifty thousand acres, reaching over the line into the Idaho panhandle. This is Montana's most Pacific-Northwest-like low country: wet, green, thick with cedar and hemlock, and home to Kootenai Falls near Libby, one of the largest free-flowing waterfalls left in the state and a sacred place to the Kootenai people. Somewhere down in the Kootenai's canyon, where the river slips across into Idaho, is the lowest ground in all of Montana.

The place

Tucked into the far northwest corner of Montana, and reaching a little way over into the Idaho panhandle, the Kootenai is one of the wettest, most maritime forests in the northern Rockies -- more Pacific Northwest than Big Sky. Rain and snow off the Pacific make it low, green and dense, with valley pockets of cedar and hemlock that feel like an inland rainforest. It takes its name from the Kootenai River, which loops down out of Canada, swings through the forest past Libby, and heads for Idaho. Between the Cabinet Mountains, the wild Yaak country, and the long reservoir called Lake Koocanusa, it's a quieter, damper, lonelier corner of Montana than the postcard peaks farther east.

History

The forest is named for the Kootenai River and for the Ktunaxa people -- also spelled Kootenai, Kootenay or Kutenai -- who have lived along these waters for a very long time and hold places like Kootenai Falls sacred. The forest itself was set aside in the early 1900s, in the wave of national forests created out of the public land of the mountain West, and its towns grew up on logging, mining and the railroad pushing through the Kootenai's canyons. In the 1970s the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers finished Libby Dam on the Kootenai River, backing the water up into a long reservoir that runs north across the border. The lake got its name from a public naming contest -- Koocanusa, stitched together from KOOtenai, CANada and USA.

Wildlife & plants

The Kootenai is grizzly country -- the Cabinet-Yaak population here is one of the smallest and most carefully watched grizzly groups in the Lower 48, so a bear sighting is rare and a big deal. Black bears are far more common, along with elk, moose, white-tailed and mule deer, mountain goats up in the high rock, and gray wolves and mountain lions doing the hunting. It's also habitat for some of the hardest animals in the West to ever lay eyes on -- Canada lynx and wolverine, both rare and elusive. The cold, clean water holds bull trout and native westslope cutthroat, and the Kootenai River shelters an endangered, long-isolated population of white sturgeon, an ancient fish that can outlive a person several times over. Under it all runs the wet-forest greenery: western redcedar, hemlock, larch that turns gold in the fall, and a thick understory that soaks up the rain.

Notable features

Kootenai Falls, on the Kootenai River just off US-2 near Libby, is one of the largest free-flowing waterfalls left in Montana -- more a thundering staircase of whitewater than a single tall drop -- crossed by a swinging footbridge and long held sacred by the Kootenai people; a river sequence for the movie 'The Revenant' was shot here, and it stood in for wild water in 'The River Wild.' South of Libby rise the Cabinet Mountains, and much of the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness -- one of the areas protected by the original 1964 Wilderness Act -- sits on this forest, topped by Snowshoe Peak at about 8,738 feet. Down the Bull River, the Ross Creek Cedars protect a grove of giant old western redcedars, many of them centuries old, with trunks several feet across and some reaching roughly 175 feet tall. To the northwest, remote and rain-soaked, lies the Yaak -- low, wild, inland-rainforest country made famous by the writer Rick Bass -- while Lake Koocanusa stretches for about 90 miles behind Libby Dam, up and over the Canadian line.

Cool to know

• The lowest point in all of Montana isn't out on the plains -- it's here, down in the Kootenai River's canyon near the Idaho line, at roughly 1,820 feet (sources vary a little). For a state famous for its high peaks, its floor is in this quiet northwest corner.
• Lake Koocanusa got its name from a public contest. The winning entry mashed together KOOtenai + CANada + USA -- fitting, since the reservoir behind Libby Dam runs about 90 miles long and crosses the international border into British Columbia.
• Kootenai Falls stood in for wild river country on the big screen -- a sequence for 'The Revenant' was filmed here, and the falls and river also featured in the 1994 whitewater thriller 'The River Wild.' A swinging footbridge lets you cross high over the gorge.
• The Ross Creek Cedars are the kind of trees you don't expect in Montana -- giant western redcedars, many of them centuries old, with trunks several feet thick, growing in a hushed, ferny grove that feels far more Pacific Northwest than Rocky Mountain.
• This is one of the few places in the Lower 48 still holding wild grizzlies in the Cabinet-Yaak recovery area -- one of the smallest and most closely watched populations anywhere, which is exactly why it matters so much to the people working to keep it alive.
• The Kootenai is Montana's inland-rainforest corner. Pacific weather dumps enough moisture here that the low valleys grow cedar and hemlock and stay green and wet, a world apart from the dry, sunny Montana most people picture.